England the fly in European ointment

The ERC and Heineken high-rollers came to town on their third leg of their promotional tour of the European Cup yesterday. As well as being excited by the prospect of a new competition beginning this weekend, they looked more than a little satisfied with themselves. And with good reason.

Among the audience was Tom Kiernan and it was the vision of men such as himself and a few others which steered the fledgling competition through some choppy waters. It survived a no-show by the English and the Scots in the inaugural 1995-96 season, a boycott by the English in the 1998-99 season, as well as many other teething problems and off-pitch registration and player discipline rows.

Yet by any yardstick, the European Cup has been the outstanding event of the professional era in the Northern Hemisphere. In the last three seasons of the competition the total audience figures for the European Cup have risen steadily from 609,015 in 1999-2000 to 648,334 two seasons ago and 655,782 last season. That the figure didn't increase more sharply last season was partially down to the fire at Toulouse's ground and the rearrangement of the Newcastle-Leinster group game on a cold, mid-week night in Leeds in front of the proverbial two men - the dog having had the sense to stay in his kennel.

With regard to television audience figures, the cup continues to reach out to new parts of Europe, again steadily rising from 34 million five seasons ago through 36 million, 35.8 million and 42.1 million to last season's 47 million.

If there's one thing the European Cup has shown in the professional era it is that unity is strength. The more the various unions and federations stick together and back the tournament, the better for everyone. Yet you wonder if the English, especially, see it that way.

You think of their initial dismissiveness about the competition and their petulant short-sightedness four seasons ago, and you ally that with the RFU twice taking the Six Nations to the brink after trying to go it alone with their own television deals, and repeated rumours of them wanting to set up annual competition with the Southern Hemisphere. Thus, perhaps unjustifiably, but until such time as European rugby is convinced otherwise, one suspicion will remain: ... namely, that for a few dollars more, the English clubs and their owners and, to a degree, Twickenham will sell the rest of Europe short.

No one moans louder or longer about the additional demands placed on players by international rugby or expansion of the European Cup or unwanted fixtures such as the Northern Hemisphere v Southern Hemisphere. Yet one of the silliest additions to an overcrowded calendar is surely the English Premiership play-offs at the fag end of the season.

Even from the viewpoint of the English clubs, there is a reasonable argument for having an extended European Cup of four pools of six teams rather than the existing six pools of four, and this at the expense of those aforementioned play-offs. It would guarantee four extra rounds of matches in Europe for their half-dozen qualifiers, as opposed to one extra round of Premiership play-off games for the eight clubs, two matches for four clubs, and three matches for two clubs. It would also be good for the European game.

ADMITTEDLY, it isn't just the English who stand in the way of this expansion. The French championship has been pruned to 16 clubs, but it's still not nearly streamlined enough to accommodate four extra European Cup weekends. The Welsh can't even agree among themselves on their club set-up, while the Scots have yet to catch the European bug.

That is why Murrayfield hasn't been countenanced as a potential venue for the final. Remarkably, no Scottish side has made the quarter-finals. It should be remembered there were only about 3,000 at Musgrave Park for Munster's only home defeat in Europe to Cardiff in 1996-97, and it needed Ulster's cup-winning run four seasons ago and Munster's march to Twickenham a year later to light the fuse. In the same way, Scottish rugby needs a catalyst.

That would be good for the European Cup, as would a revival in Italy. From the 1997-98 cup through to the 1999-2000 event, the two Italians won three or four matches between them each year, but the decline of Benetton Treviso has seen the Italians win only one match out of 24 in the last couple of campaigns.

Ideally, the European Cup wants to reach out to Murrayfield and even Rome, but for the time being the ERC are understandably fearful of over-stretching themselves. Having already granted this season's final to Lansdowne Road, there is a case for playing the semi-finals at neutral venues, between Paris, Twickenham, Cardiff or even Edinburgh. They could start promoting, planning and selling tickets for both semi-finals now, and they'd make good occasions of the semi-finals, while also avoiding the logistical difficulties of arranging two games at short notice (they hope to have four venues ready in advance of the quarter-finals just a fortnight beforehand).

Ironically, the lack of real progress until now by the Scots or the Italians comes at a time when the competition between the representatives of England, France, Ireland and Wales has never been so acute. It's true that, in all bar one year when they've competed, English clubs have made off with the silverware, but it depends how you look at these things.

Last season, especially, Leicester scraped past Llanelli in the semi-final and Munster in the final, and their victory masked the worst showing in the competition, collectively, by England's half-dozen entries, with an all-time low winning ratio of just 52.5 per cent. In contrast, the Irish, collectively, had never performed so creditably, winning 73 per cent of their matches - including all nine at home.

Deluded by their own hype, the English clubs aren't anything like the force they were a few years ago, and with Llanelli the flag-bearers for Wales, it can be said the winners could come from any one of four participating countries. That said, it would be darned nice if the silverware went elsewhere.